Bakewells, as the name suggests, originate from the town of Bakewell in Derbyshire. The original version, which is still baked today are called bakewell puddings, which use a flaky or puff pastry. Its pre-decessor, the bakewell tart on the other hand uses short crust pastry and is topped with a frangipane filling.

They were first invented in the 19th century at the White House Inn when the cook forgot to use the eggs and sugar in his rich pastry, which meant he had a short crust pastry and eggs to spare. He mixed the eggs with almond paste to make a frangipane and topped it over the jam filling.

Bakewell tarts can be all sorts of flavours, but due to the popularity of our much loved Mr. Kipling, the most famous kind cherry bakewell. A while a go, I wanted to try my hand at making my own cherry bakewell, but I did not have any cherry jam. Actually, to be more precise, I did not have any jam at all. One thing I did have though were strawberries, so I decided to make my own filling from scratch. Based on the brands I used, each tart should be about 70 calories.